Plastic Creep Constraint in Nylon Instrument Strings

A number of rectified nylon harp strings, having the same nominal diameter, were subjected to different sequences of applied stress steps. Each string was tested continuously for several weeks to allow sufficient time for the stretching responses to be clearly observed. Qualitatively, much of the observed behaviour was in accordance with established expectations. However, the quantitative data gathered here are believed to be novel, and revealed some surprises. The strings displayed a combination of elastic stretching, fully recoverable viscoelastic stretching, and apparently non-recoverable plastic stretching. The elastic and recoverable viscoelastic stretching behaviour was quite straightforward, but the plastic creep behaviour was more complicated, with a number of the strings displaying an unanticipated phenomenon. When the applied stress was left unchanged, or was stepped down and back up again, it was noticed that, in some cases, the extent of the subsequent plastic stretching, when the applied stress was next increased beyond its previous maximum, was significantly less than might have been expected. The tests revealed that this apparent plastic creep ‘constraint’ mechanism seemed to depend primarily on the length of time between successive overall rises in the applied stress, with a threshold somewhere in the range of 30–40 days. It is suggested that this phenomenon may be due to a gradual increase in the polymer crystallinity during this rest period. Two of the strings, which were tested over a wider range of applied stress levels, revealed another aspect of the creep behaviour. There appeared to be an initial ‘straightening’ phase during which the plastic stretching rose with the applied stress in a diminishing manner to reach a stretching limit. As the applied stress was increased, this initial straightening was overtaken by an unlimited main stretching phase, which rose slowly at first before approaching a linear increase with the applied stress.